Murphy: The boy, the princess and the dragon

He was a simple boy with a simple life, and for the longest time, the boy was content with the things that most young boys like. He loved his dog. He collected rocks, fossils and old coins. He read dozens of books about swarthy pirates on tropical islands and bold knights in shining armor, even while he dreamed of greater things.

But as the boy grew older, he realized that there was something missing — something vital, something essential. He was not certain what that something was, but it gnawed at him daily, like a rat chewing on some vague corner of his soul.

One day, the boy was sitting with his best friend when he saw a girl.

She was walking and laughing with some of her girlfriends. Her long, dark hair reflected the afternoon sunlight in iridescent rainbows.

She was, unequivocally, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

“Who is that?” he asked his friend.

The friend chuckled.

“A Princess,” the friend said. “She’s out of your league.”

She strode by the two of them, long-legged, tantalizingly coming within a few inches of the boy, but he averted his eyes — as was the custom when a commoner encounters a Princess.

Still, he could still inhale her scent as she walked past. And it made him dizzy.

The boy was smitten.

His infatuation with the Princess consumed him. It was like an illness. He drew pictures of her in pencil, laboring over every tiny detail. He went to sleep at night dreaming of her. When he awoke, his first thoughts were always of her.

But the Princess knew nothing of this.

After several months, the boy knew he had to speak to her. There was simply no other choice. He would die if he did not.

When the day came, the boy steeled himself for the rejection he knew would come. He walked right up to the Princess. His chest tightened and his breath caught in his mouth and he was a stuttering mess, intermittently incoherent.

But she was kind to him.

It was then that he knew, feeling that missing piece click into place at last.

She was what he needed in his life. She made him whole. And he loved her.

It took him years to kiss her. When he finally did, he looked into her eyes and said, “Well? What are you thinking?”

“It’s about time,” she said.

They married in a grand cathedral one humid summer’s eve. She was a vision in white lace, her onyx eyes reflecting the flickering candlelight. Hundreds looked on as the boy and the Princess became husband and wife.

In that moment, the boy was the happiest man in the entire world. They had two children. Life seemed filled with love and promise.

But then the Dragon came. It started with a simple cough that would not go away.

“Why are you coughing?” the boy asked.

“It’s nothing,” said the Princess.

Only it wasn’t.

When the boy finally gazed at the X-rays, he hated them. For could see the dragon curled up deep inside the Princess’s chest, entwining itself between her lungs and wrapping its foul tentacles around her heart, crushing her windpipe.

The Dragon was relentless.

The boy knew he had to be strong for her. Still, it was hard. He could see the Princess getting thinner, her life trickling away. The Dragon was winning, its scales gleaming dull and invisible in the darkness, as it tightened its grip and dug its vicious fangs deeper and deeper into her fragile soul.

The boy sometimes found himself staring into the abyss, gazing with dead eyes into an empty future suddenly transmuted from one of limitless promise into one of ash and oblivion. He had always known that he and the Princess would grow old together. But now there was the Dragon.

Her long hair fell out, all of it. There were long days and longer nights, nights filled with awful dreams and desperate thoughts that the boy had to ignore.

He shoved those foul things into a cabinet deep inside his brain, locking them away tight. The days slowed to a crawl and every moment became precious, a fragile confection of time and touch. Simple gestures grew pregnant with emotion — a kiss goodnight, rocking the baby to sleep, a meal by the fireplace.

For somewhere, deep down, the boy knew that each of these things could be happening for the very last time.

The miracle came on a crisp November day a year or so later.

The Dragon was dead.

They could scarcely believe it, but the X-rays did not lie. The Dragon had been burned out of its hiding place, its gleaming teeth gone at last, the dark scales a mere memory. All that was left were the scars.

The boy and the Princess lived happily ever after.

Today, on Thanksgiving Day 2012, my wife Daphne turns 50 years old. Her children are grown now, and her husband is no longer a boy.

As the sun leaps over the horizon this morning, on a day I once feared I might never see, I give thanks to God for the greatest gift of all: the precious life of my wife, my soul-mate, the person who made me complete, a woman just as kind and as beautiful as the day I first saw her all those many years ago.

Any strength I have in this world comes from her, from that same boundless reservoir of sheer will and determination that allowed her to vanquish the Dragon. I am incredibly grateful for today, for all of our yesterdays and all of our many tomorrows.

Happy birthday, Princess.

And thank you, on this special Thanksgiving Day, for making me the happiest man in the entire world — again.